Kathe Cahill’s Reviews > To Kill a Shadow > Status Update

what-

Yeah-
It's so instalove-y
Like they both have such intense feelings for each other as soon as they meet? And they're so protective towards each other?
And it's nothing special either, he's the cliche broody bad boy assassin with a tortured past and a heart of gold, and she's a feisty super good at fighting brave impulsive reckless warrior, he's like a foot taller than her, she's super duper short, she apparently hated him although that lasted for five seconds and came out of nowhere
The plot is also pretty much exactly the same as any other booktok fantasy

Damn girl I don't think any booktok books are worth reading

HOLY MOLY JINU IS NO LONGER

Anywho. I am lowkey mad at something about a story.
Pls google "Lamp at Noon by Sinclair Ross".
And read it.

Yeahh ik
YESSS I wanted to change it weeks ago but I didn't know what to change it to teehee
Okay sure

Okay I read it

Ok so

In your opinion, who is more a jerk in the story, Paul or Ellen

Ummm
I feel like there is a right answer
But idk if I had to choose I'd say Paul? Cause I feel like Ellen has good points, and he seems too attached to the land despite it being pretty much desert at this point
Ellen is saying she wants more than this and Paul is saying that she chose this by marrying him
She also did warn him of the effects of monocropping (I learnt about this in school who knew this would be useful teehee) but he didn't listen and now he wants them to wait until rain comes back? But even if the rain comes back it doesn't mean the soil will come back...

See? I agree.
You know what our (male) teacher said when analysing the characters?
So, we were deciding what personality traits Ellen and Paul have, and the teacher was like.
Paul:
- Loyal
- Faithful
- Hard-working
- Stubborn
- Dreamer

Ellen:
- Irrational
- Impulsive
- Entitled
- Stubborn

Bruh

Like. What.

Oh, and, also, Ellen was said to be moody

But that's just so inherently wrong

What

This sounds very sexist tbh

How is Ellen irrational for wanting to leave? She was the one who told him not to plant wheat over and over again, and he didn't listen, which resulted in this whole situation...

If anything he was the irrational one? He refused to leave the land because "there will be rain next year" and he was super attached to it, and he literally told Ellen that she should've known this would happen because she married a farmer? He refused to listen to her very good points and he called her selfish?

How is she entitled to want more than to live in the desert? She's so desperate to convince him to leave because she's worried about their family but he refuses because of his pride, and the fact that he can't stand being in someone's debt. "I can't go, Ellen. Living off your people - charity - stop and think of it. This is where I belong. I can't do anything else.""

Like okay, maybe some of her reasons were selfish, but I really don't think it's bad to want to not work as much and not feel hopeless all the time. She tries to tell him how she feels, and he dismisses it.

And he realizes she's right himself! "And though he had known since yesterday that not a blade would last the storm, still now, before the utter waste confronting him, he sickened and stood cold. Suddenly like the fields he was naked. Everything that had sheathed him a little from the realities of existence: vision and purpose, faith in the land, in the future, in himself - it was all rent now, stripped away. "Desert," he heart her voice begin to sob. "Desert, you fool - the lamp lit at noon!""

He literally says himself that he knew the land wouldn't feed them but he was still very attached and was trying to figure out how to justify keeping it, which is both stubborn and irrational.

Anyways I didn't mean to write a whole essay, but that just kind of annoyed me teehee

EXACTLY
EXACTLY
Paul is literally delusional
Ellen is overall reasonable. Her big mistake was running away during a storm, but she was incredibly desperate. Imagine being locked in a tiny two room house with an infant, in the middle of a desert, with so much dust that you can't see at noon, in utter poverty, with a man you agreed to live in poverty with ignoring all your advice that could actually keep your family fed.